Traditions serve to connect generations, and college football has no shortage: In Clemson, S.C., players rub Howard’s Rock; in South Bend, Ind., the Notre Dame Fighting Irish smack a hand-painted sign that reads, “Play Like A Champion Today”; and in Norman, Okla., horses charge across the turf pulling a settler’s wagon each time the Sooners score.

Starting this season, there will be a new custom that promises to be no less iconic: In Tempe, Arizona State University players will slap Sun Devil and American war hero Pat Tillman on the back before storming onto Frank Kush Field.

ASU unveiled a new bronze Tillman statue Wednesday, capping a series of upgrades and renovations that serve to help announce the university’s intentions of reaching a new level of athletic prominence.

“Traditions are vital,” ASU football coach Todd Graham said.

Aside from stadium improvements that include a new scoreboard and sound system, enhanced concourses, restrooms and club seating, the school recently unveiled a 120,000 square-foot football facility, featuring a sprawling weight room, theater-style teaching spaces and a training room with an underwater treadmill.

It also has spaces dedicated to the program’s greatest teams, including photos that go back more than 100 years to when ASU was called the Territorial Normal School at Tempe.

“Before Arizona was a state,” donor Art Pearce said.

Pearce’s great-grandfather, Zebulon Pearce, suited up on some of the university’s earliest teams, playing right guard for two seasons, starting in 1898, even though “he was probably only 5-foot-7, at the most.”

Zeb Pearce later became a distributor, connecting with Coors to bring beer to Mesa after prohibition, Art Pearce said.

Art Pearce said he became involved with the athletic department after connecting with Graham and Vice President for University Athletics Ray Anderson. He heard about their vision for the stadium and the football facility and wanted to help.

His initial idea was for a pitchfork statue, but Graham put forward the idea of doing a Tillman statue first. Pearce loved the idea and decided to do both, agreeing with Graham that it was more important to honor Tillman first. The giant pitchfork is in storage at a Mesa foundry, where artist Jeff Carol Davenport works.

Davenport did a statue of Zeb Pearce that was installed in Mesa in 2014. She and others were guarded about the cost of the Tillman statue. She said that if she were to do a project of this type again, it would be about $250,000. But given she and Art Pearce’s working relationship, she did the Tillman statue at a discount.

Graham has made it a priority to make sure Pearce and every other player who ever played football for ASU has his photo somewhere in the new football building. There are a few gaps, but the program is working to fill them.

Art Pearce said he plans to provide the program a photo of his great-grandfather that can be included among the images, facts and statistics on display in a hallway that doubles as a program museum.

Graham also has gone out of his way to make sure Kush, who died in June at age 88, is recognized as the “architect of our program.”

He said he makes sure his players “know their history.”

Understanding the past helps athletes “connect to something bigger than themselves, which is so important given how individualized” society has become.

Tillman became an American hero after walking away from a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army after the terror attacks of Sept. 11. He was killed in Afghanistan in 2004. He was 27.

At ASU, Tillman became Pac-10 defensive player of the year. He helped lead the Sun Devils to the 1997 Rose Bowl after an undefeated regular season.

He was known as a hard-nosed linebacker, who earned both an academic and athletic All-America honors.

In death, his name and number have become synonymous with Valley through the annual Pat’s Run, a charity event that supports the Pat Tillman Foundation, which was founded in 2004 and provides college scholarships to military veterans and their spouses.

To date, the foundation has invested $14 million in academic support to hundreds of Tillman scholars.

Pat Tillman's mother Mary “Dannie” Tillman hugs her granddaughter as she looks up at a statue in her son's likeness during an unveiling ceremony at Sun Devil Stadium Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, in Tempe. Ariz.(Photo: David Kadlubowski/azcentral sports)

Tillman is depicted in a statue outside University of Phoenix Stadium, where Cardinals fans pose for pictures. That statue shows Tillman in celebration; helmet off, hair wild. The ASU version shows a subdued Tillman, walking to the field with his helmet on, long hair flowing from the back.

Graham said that each of his players will touch the statue, which has a maroon patina and stands around 9-feet tall on its pedestal, on their way to the field.

The unveiling of the statue comes at a transformative moment for the nation.

Black Lives Matter protests rocked the election cycle. A white nationalist rally around a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Va., this month turned deadly. And the sky over downtown Phoenix was the latest to fill with teargas as police sought to disperse demonstrators outside of an assembly for President Donald Trump, who recently pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio after the lawman was convicted of violating a court order demanding he stop targeting Latinos in traffic sweeps.

Athletes, meanwhile, have been protesting racism during the national anthem and taking political position on social media and elsewhere.

Tillman, for his part, was also an activist, seeking to do something meaningful, rather than something easy. However, he never tried to influence others to follow, frequently declining interviews after leaving the NFL.

“He was an activist by taking action and doing something that no one would do,” Tillman’s former teammate and college roommate Barry Alford said.

Tillman would not have liked “the way it is today, the obsession of more, more, more, money, money, money, more notoriety, more notoriety, more notoriety,” Alford said.

“The chaos that, I think, in my opinion, is going on today, Pat would disapprove of it,” he said.

“I think the statement he made,” through leaving the NFL to become an Army Ranger, “spoke volumes about how Pat would have been and would be and would continue to be in the future.”

“That was a great loss when we lost Pat because he could have been somebody that had the platform and the character to help steer a lot of this nonsense back into the right place that it needs to be, if that makes sense.”

The right place being more productivity, less vitriol, bring people together?

“Right,” Alford said. “That’s kinda where I know he would be on it. And yeah, he would speak his mind, no doubt. And you know what, he’d be right about it.”

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Pat Tillman's mother Mary “Dannie” Tillman hugs her granddaughter as she looks up at a statue in her son's likeness during an unveiling ceremony at Sun Devil Stadium Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, in Tempe. Ariz. David Kadlubowski/azcentral sports

Sept. 5, 2013 - ASU players prepare to take the field against Sacramento State at Sun Devil Stadium. The Tillman Tunnel was unveiled on Sept. 4 with a picture of the former Sun Devil leading the way onto the field for all future games. Rob Schumacher/azcentral sports

Sept. 5, 2013 - The Arizona State football team prepares to take the field behind a photograph of Pat Tillman against Sacramento State at Sun Devil Stadium. The Tillman Tunnel was unveiled on Sept. 4 featuring a photograph of the former Sun Devil leading the way onto the field. Rob Schumacher/azcentral sports

Sept. 4, 2013 - A redesigned Tillman Tunnel has been unveiled at Sun Devil Stadium. A picture of the former Sun Devil will lead the way onto the field for all future games. Rob Schumacher/azcentral sports

July 23, 1998: Cardinals rookie safety and former star linebacker at ASU, Pat Tillman goes horizontal to make a spectacular one-handed grab of a pass during a drill at the afternoon session of the opening day of training camp. Paul F. Gero/The Arizona Republic

Sept. 2, 1998: Former ASU standout linebacker Pat Tillman makes good on the Arizona Cardinals team as he was named to the starting unit, as a safety, just days before the team's season opener in Dallas. Mike Rynearson/The Arizona Republic

June 2003: Former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman as an Army Ranger. Tillman turned down a multi-million dollar contract from the Cardinals to enlist in the Army Rangers in 2002. AP Photo/Photography Plus via Williamson Stealth Media Solutions

Nov. 13, 2004: ASU fans in the student section hold up a large sign and chant Pat Tillman's name during an award ceremony honoring the former star Sun Devil during halftime of ASU's game against Washington State. Mike Rynearson/azcentral sports

April 10, 2008: Marie Tillman, wife of the late Pat Tillman, listens to two Tillman Scholars talk about their social welfare projects at Arizona State's LVA Building in Tempe. Cheryl Evans/azcentral sports

March 19, 2010 - A photograph Pat Tillman is displayed on a wooden cross at a roadside memorial that features over 5,000 wooden crosses which represent U.S. troops that have been killed in Iraq in Lafayette, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Feb 15, 2008 - Evolution Custom Cycles and SandBox Creative designed and built an $85,000 motorcycle in honor of Pat Tillman. The bike was raffled off, with proceeds going to the Pat Tillman Foundation. Courtesy of SandBox Creative

Feb. 5, 2011 - Billy Mayfair, wearing a No. 42 Pat Tillman ASU football jersey, celebrates after his tee shot on the 16th hole during the second round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale in Scottsdale almost went in for a hole-in-one. Christian Petersen/Getty Images